A defense witness in transgender sex worker Leniyah Butler’s federal homicide trial told the jury Monday that she once pepper-sprayed the victim. Butler is charged with second-degree murder in killing Hamza Walupupu in November 2023 at Crissy Field.
Deaujanay Allen, a cisgender sex worker, was subpoenaed to testify in the case. She said she did not know Butler, 21, who shot Walupupu, 32, just before dawn November 12, 2023 after he had picked her up in a Hyundai Accent in the Tenderloin district with the intent of paying her for sex.
Also discussed was Walupupu’s past medical treatment. Later Judge Susan Illston excluded testimony about a past alleged incident involving Butler at a Pride celebration.
Allen claimed she was hired for sex by a person described as Walupupu’s uncle – but who was not identified – in August 2023, and that the three of them were drinking and partying in her hotel room, near Oakland International Airport. When it was time for Allen and the uncle to be alone, she sent Walupupu out of the room. However, he “came back up with a random girl,” she said.
“I said, ‘She can’t come in,’ and the girl started demanding her $200 he’d [Walupupu] promised her, or something,” Allen said.
Allen testified the uncle paid the person $100 “just so she would leave,” but Walupupu stayed.
“I told him he could go back downstairs,” Allen testified. “He started getting very extra [over the top] with me … talking to me all crazy and stuff, and I was like ‘What the fuck? Get out of here.’”
Walupupu’s behavior made Allen “feel uncomfortable,” she testified. She claimed he groped her, and said afterward, “There was a time he grabbed a pack of condoms on the table and he started struggling, trying to fight me for the condoms.”
“I threw them out the window,” she continued. “I was like ‘If you want them, take them.’”
Eventually, hotel security was called. After that, Walupupu grabbed some of Allen’s things, and she Maced him, she testified.
“He started coming into my area [of the hotel room], like near the bed, and grabbing my belongings – things that were obviously mine – and that’s why I maced him,” she said. “I’d asked him more than five times to leave my room, in five different tones.”
A close friend of Butler's had also testified that she'd had oral sex with Walupupu in the past.
In opening statements March 17, Butler's defense attorney Shaffy Moeel cited self defense in the case. Moeel told the Bay Area Reporter on the first day of the trial that her client wants to be referred to as Leniyah. She is listed as such on the court documents along with Leion Butler, which is not her deadname. Those documents were changed on March 17. Previous court records included Butler's deadname, which the B.A.R. isn't publishing.
The trial is being held in Illston’s courtroom, who is a judge for U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, at the federal courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Avenue, near San Francisco City Hall.
While homicide cases typically are adjudicated in county courts, the fact that the killing took place on federal land gives the United States government original jurisdiction on this matter.
Excluded testimony
After the jury was dismissed Monday, but still in open court, the prosecution argued that Allen’s testimony should mean that they should be able to call an officer who they said arrested Butler in June 2023 for allegedly using bear spray at a Pride event. Prosecutors said the incident took place when Butler was a minor. The charges are still pending.
The city where this occurred was unspecified during the discussion; however, in June 2022, as the B.A.R. reported, people fled the Sunday San Francisco Pride celebration at Civic Center Plaza in terror, falsely believing a mass-casualty shooting had taken place and causing a stampede. Separately, there were physical fights, and someone sprayed pepper spray into the crowd.
At the time, San Francisco Police Department Sergeant Kathryn Winters stated that "an unknown female dispersed a caustic chemical, possibly ‘bear spray’ into the crowd.”
In June 2023, the B.A.R. reported that Leedell Moore, 23, of Oakland, was arrested and booked on charges of carrying a loaded firearm.
Defense Attorney David W. Rizk said that there’s “no indication from reports Butler was acting in self-defense” in the alleged bear spray incident.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey Davidson argued that “since we wrote this motion” evidence has turned up that Butler claimed “she was acting in self-defense. So, there are some similarities, it turns out.”
Illston ruled that the event Allen’s testimony described – interaction between Walupupu and a sex worker – was similar enough to the events of the alleged crime, and so was admissible, whereas the alleged bear spray incident was “too different from the current charge” to be admitted.
Cross-examination
Allen was cross-examined by Assistant U.S. Attorney George Hageman, who questioned the motive for the macing of Walupupu. Under questioning, Allen said, “It wasn’t because he was getting my stuff.”
“I Maced him because he, instead of just going out like he was supposed to, instead of him making that straight shot, he veered this way, veered that way.”
Asked Hageman: “So you were angry he wasn’t walking a straight line? You were angry he was zig-zagging?”
Answered Allen: “At that point he was unpredictable. I Maced him to get [him] out of my space.”
Security was present at the time of the macing, Allen testified.
Police were eventually called, but Allen did not call them, she testified. Law enforcement briefly placed Allen in handcuffs but she was released, she continued.
“I don’t know what Crissy Field is,” Allen said, when asked about the site of the killing. “I, literally, wouldn’t be here if I weren’t subpoenaed to come here.”
The defense also called Lillian Dubrall, a nurse practitioner who’d seen Walupupu and who testified that she referred him to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with schizophrenia after he had expressed that his “legs were burning,” in Walupupu’s words, since a 2020 stay at a shelter.
“There is a reason why I am like this,” Walupupu reported, according to defense exhibits. At the shelter “they did things to me … like magic.”
The “they” appeared to refer to people with “influence” who “deal with lower government,” Walupupu claimed according to the exhibits of medical records.
Walupupu was subsequently prescribed aripiprazole, an anti-psychotic.
On cross-examination, prosecutors pointed out that belief in voodoo or magic isn’t a prima facie sign of a mental disorder.
Asked Hageman: “You noted Mr. Walupupu said some people did voodoo on him?”
Answered Durball: “Correct.”
Asked Hageman: “Do you know what country he and his family immigrated from?”
Answered Dubrall: “No.”
Asked Hageman: “So you don’t know they moved here from the [Democratic Republic of the] Congo?”
Answered Dubrall: “No.”
Asked Hageman: “Do you know if voodoo is a common spiritual belief where he came from?”
The defense objected – citing foundation – but was overruled.
Answered Dubrall: “No.”
Asked Hageman: “Do you know if voodoo has a different connotation there than in the U.S.?”
Answered Dubrall: “No.”
Asked Hageman: “Is it important for traditional beliefs unfamiliar to Western culture to not be improperly labeled as delusional?”
Answered Dubrall: “Yes.”
Dr. Amanda Gregory, a neuropsychologist who interviewed Butler, testified that the defendant had an IQ of 73 and a mental age of 10 years and 5 months. Gregory testified that Butler had met nine of 10 adverse childhood experiences that are often surveyed.
The defense also called Keith McArthur, a private investigator, who described the location of the San Francisco transgender blade – a two-block section of downtown that includes the intersection of Post and Polk streets, where Walupupu picked up Butler.
Illston said that testimony is expected to wrap up March 25.
Walupupu's family members who have been in court have declined to speak to the B.A.R.
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